Take the 15th installment of The Urbanist's crossword series, which runs every two weeks. If you love to take a contemplative moment with a brain-teasing puzzle, but you’re tired of nationally syndicated crosswords with no local flair or stance on high-capacity transit, you’re right where you need to be.

Nathan Vass shares a vignette gleaned from driving buses for King County Metro in Seattle, talking with passengers, and absorbing street life happening around the bus route.

The Urbanist's Annual Holiday Party is the biggest gathering of local urbanists and elected officials of the year. Mingle, celebrate our recent wins, and hear about the future of urbanism in the Puget Sound. Get your tickets today!

Focused on transit and street upgrades, budget amendments this week will be the subject of behind-the-scenes wrangling as Budget Committee Chair Dan Strauss assembles an initial balancing package for the council to debate next week.

Seattle has a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to improve public safety outcomes by civilianizing more tasks and focusing police on major crime. That’s what mayoral candidate Katie Wilson’s public safety platform proposes, which Bryan Kirschner argues would be anti-bad guy, pro-good cop, and taxpayer-friendly.

King County Executive Shannon Braddock has proposed a series of changes to one of the county’s pre-filing youth diversion programs, currently called Restorative Community Pathways, replacing the community-led program with a county-led program with a slashed budget.

Before moving ahead with building a second Downtown Seattle light rail tunnel as planned, Sound Transit is taking a second look at putting a third line in the existing tunnel instead. Doing so would entail some major tradeoffs, which the agency intends to fully lay out in its study.

In four different races, Kirkland voters face a choice between pro-growth candidates interested in fostering additional types of housing throughout the city, and candidates looking for the city to be way less aggressive in fighting the region's affordable housing crisis.